


Cold Feet and Broken Ankles

by whoaaitsmichele



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 23:17:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13581012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoaaitsmichele/pseuds/whoaaitsmichele
Summary: David realizes his feelings for Patrick and runs.





	Cold Feet and Broken Ankles

David was nervous.

He hadn’t been this nervous since he crushed on a girl in 7th grade and made a fool of himself in front of her when he asked her out in front of his entire grade at one of the many private schools he attended. She had started laughing and walked away without even giving him a response, leaving him with an empty feeling in his chest and a bitterness towards the world.

Until Patrick.

Patrick was not like anyone he ever met before. He was sweet, kind and didn’t look at David like he had grown two heads. He also didn’t want to just hop into bed with him, which was refreshing and new. 

A little too new for David, who didn’t know how to handle a real relationship. He’d ignore how sad that fact was later.

When he first met Patrick, he felt an instant attraction, which scared him. How the hell would he be able to handle working with this man when all he wanted to do was kiss his face?

Lucky for him, after embarrassing phone messages and working together to make the store a semi-success, he kissed him and Patrick didn’t run away screaming.

Which did happen once when he was 21 and at a bar. He didn’t like to relive that experience.

But he would love to relive this one. 

“David?” 

Oh god.

David looked up, shaking away his thoughts to focus on the man in front of him.

Patrick.

He let a smile come across his face and he felt Patrick’s eyes on him, confused and slightly worried. The other man smiled as David kept looking at him in adoration.

David really needed to calm down. He felt Alexis’ nagging voice in the back of his mind telling him to relax and not overthink anything. He let out a breath and opened his mouth to reply when the door opened and a customer came in.

Patrick looked at him briefly, before turning to help the woman who came in and David cursed quietly to himself.

He hated feeling like this. He really liked Patrick, but he also didn’t know how to handle the feeling that everything was going to fall apart and Patrick would leave him in the dust, ripping the gift he gave him off the wall with no thought.

He suddenly couldn’t breathe and the sweater he had on felt really tight around him, suffocating him.

He remembered this feeling. He felt it a while back and Ted explained that it was a panic attack.

Oh god he was panicking.

“David?” The older man suddenly realized Patrick was in front of him, concern his eyes as he took in his boyfriend’s state and before he could think about it, David ran out of the store.

Without a sense of direction of where he would be going, he didn’t take notice of the fallen tree branch in front of him and he fell down. Hard. 

He heard his ankle snap as he went down and he cried out in pain.

“David?” A familiar voice spoke up nearby and he winced through the pain and looked up to see Stevie kneeling down by him.

“Yeah?” He responded, nonchalantly, ignoring the blinding pain in his ankle. His best friend rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone. David watched as she sent a text to someone and he closed his eyes, trying to breathe.

“Jesus David,” Patrick’s voice filled the air a minute later, and he opened his eyes to see his boyfriend, well ex-boyfriend at the rate this relationship was going. He was pretty sure Patrick would break up with him after his panic attack and sprint out of the store.

“Hi,” he spoke meekly, trying not to move his ankle. Patrick rolled his eyes, before lifting David into his arms, much to the shock of the older man. 

Patrick was stronger than he thought.

He cried out in pain from the movement and Patrick muttered an apology, before he carried David over to his car. Much to Patrick’s surprise, David barely made a scene at him getting carried. The pain from his ankle must have overpowered any feelings of David being embarrassed about looking like a damsel in distress.

Stevie was right beside them, David noticed. She opened the door to the backseat and he felt himself being placed down on the seat and Patrick elevated his leg so it wouldn’t cause him so much pain. He suddenly felt really tired and he heard the two front doors of the car open and close and he fell asleep before they even made it out of Schitt’s Creek towards to the hospital in Elmdale.

\--

“David?” A voice whispered in his ear and David tried to swat at the person. He just wanted to sleep.

“David, come on. You have to get your ankle looked at. It’s the size of a balloon,” Patrick stated, knowing that the comparison would wake up his boyfriend.

Suddenly alert, David opened his eyes and looked down at his ankle. 

He glared at Patrick, seeing that it was not the size of a balloon.

Maybe the size of a golf ball and he was in a great amount of pain again.

He really needed painkillers for this.

Stevie had rushed inside the hospital to get help and David found himself being pushed up gently into a sitting position and helped out of the car by his boyfriend and a nurse.

Suddenly, the embarrassment he hadn’t felt before came back full force and he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

“David Rose?” An unfamiliar voice called out to him and he opened one eye to see the nurse next to him. He realized he had been placed on a gurney and was being taken further and further away from Patrick into the hospital. 

“Yeah?” He asked, suddenly wanting a familiar face near him. He felt a prick in his arm and suddenly everything fell away.

\--

“He needed surgery?” Alexis asked Patrick about an four hours later, watching as her older brother slept away in the hospital bed. The entire family was there, along with Stevie and the Schitts. Even Ted was there, for reasons Patrick didn’t really know, but he wasn’t going to question it.

A nurse appeared in the doorway and smiled gently, taking in the scene of all the people in the room.

“I’m sorry folks, but only three people can be in the room as one time.” She looked apologetic, Patrick took note, but the glare that Moira sent her, had her practically running out of the room.

“Apparently his ankle was severely broken and they needed to add screws into the bone to keep it in place.” The entire room shuddered at the explanation. 

“My poor boy,” Moira dramatically sat down in the seat next to his bed, putting her hand out to reach her son before she pulled away. Johnny laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder, contemplating reaching out to his son as well. 

Patrick looked at the family, taking note that they were definitely not a touchy feely family.

There was an awkward silence filling the room, the only noise coming from the machines attached to David.

“I think we should head out,” Jocelyn stated, looking at her husband who shrugged and bid them all goodbye.

“Oh thank go-od they left,” Moira said. She felt all eyes on her and sighed. “I can only take so much of Jocelyn looking like she was about to cry. David has a broken ankle. He isn’t dying.”

“I think I should go too,” Ted said, noting that he wasn’t particularly close to David and felt incredibly out of place. He wasn’t even dating Alexis anymore, but she insisted he come with her for emotional support. 

“I’ll walk you out,” Alexis spoke up, grabbing Ted’s hand and practically dragging him out of the room.

“Dear, why don’t we go to the cafeteria and leave Patrick and Stevie with David,” Johnny suggested to his wife, who looked put out before sighing and grabbing her bag. 

“If we must,” she got up and followed her husband out of the room.

“That was incredibly awkward,” Patrick stated bluntly and Stevie let out a laugh.

“You get used to it.” 

Patrick sat down, looking over at his boyfriend who somehow looked smaller in the hospital bed. He bit his lip, before grabbing David’s hand, careful of the IV sticking out of it.

“So what happened exactly?” Stevie and Patrick both asked each other, before chuckling at the well timed question.

“I saw him running down the sidewalk and was too far away to call out to him before I saw that tree branch he tripped over,” Stevie explained, concerned as to why she saw David running like he was being chased.

Patrick frowned, “He looked like he was having a panic attack at the store and I didn’t want to spook him, but before I could get another word into our very limited conversation, he ran out of the store. He looked like he was going to run through the door if he wasn’t careful.”

Stevie was about to speak up again, but they heard a groan from the bed.

“David?” Patrick whispered, putting his hand on his boyfriend’s head, trying to soothe him. 

“Wha?” The older man mumbled, confused. He blearily opened his eyes and winced against the light. 

“Hey there friend,” Stevie said from where she was standing at the end of the bed.

“Ugh, my ankle.” David whimpered, trying not ignore the pain.

“Hey, hey it’s okay,” Patrick tried to ease his worries. He grabbed a button and handed it to David, “You can press this to get the pain meds.”

David quickly pressed it and in 15 seconds, felt the pain go away. 

“What happened exactly?” He asked warily, looking between his best friend and boyfriend.

“You kind of had a panic attack, ran out of the store...and tripped over a branch,” Patrick explained, “only you would break your ankle to the point where you actually needed surgery,” he chuckled.

“Oh my god I’m such an idiot,” David grumbled, pouting. 

Patrick smirked lightly and caressed David’s cheek, pulling David’s focus on him and away from his mortification.

“You have to tell me if you’re hurting David. That’s how relationships work,” he reminded his boyfriend, who tried to look away.

Stevie coughed, breaking the awkward moment. “I’m gonna go. I’ll see you both later. The doctor said you could leave in a few hours. So you won’t be stuck here for much longer.”

“Thank god.” David mumbled, earning him a kiss on the forehead from Stevie. 

She bid them both goodbye and walked out and David was left with only Patrick.

The reason for all of this mess was Patrick.

Well not really. The reason for all of this was David’s feelings for Patrick and not knowing what to do with those feelings to start a healthy and stable relationship.

“David?” Patrick asked, letting his fingers card through David’s hair. 

The action soothed his boyfriend, who looked like he was going to fall asleep again.

“I don’t know how to do this.” 

“This?” Patrick asked confused, before realization hit him in the face. “You mean...us?” 

“Yeah…” David responded quietly, grabbing the blanket and fooling around with the thread of it.

“Do you want to...break up?” Patrick asked, pulling his hand away.

David felt his eyes tear up, not knowing what to do.

“No. I don’t,” he responded. Patrick quirked an eyebrow at him, lost as to why David suddenly felt this way.

“Then what David?”

“I’ve never been in a relationship with someone for more than three months. I’ve never felt this way about someone before and I don’t know how to make it stick,” he let out a breath before continuing, “Alexis tells me I overthink everything which is why my anxiety spikes and why I ran out of the store today.”

“David…” the younger man started, but David wasn’t finished.

“The last relationship I had was unknowingly with two other people. My relationships end in disaster, but I’m hoping ours doesn’t. I just don’t know how I can make sure that ours will last because I love you.”

Patrick’s mouth fell open at the proclamation and David’s eyes widened at what he just confessed.

Patrick cleared his throat, grabbed David’s face and kissed him. David fell into the kiss and returned it happily, before Patrick separated their lips. The older man felt his boyfriend kiss him on the forehead and Patrick finally pulled away.

“I love you too,” Patrick proclaimed before grabbing David’s hand and squeezing it.

Unbeknownst to them, Johnny and Moira had been standing outside the door to the room and heard the entire conversation.

“Oh my son is in love!” Moira cried out dramatically and David groaned from inside the room.

“Mom!” “Moira!” The two Rose men exclaimed at once, leaving Patrick to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but knowing he would gladly take this eccentric family any day if it meant he would be with David.


End file.
